I've been wanting to PT my son when he was 17months and showing interest but life got in the way, I got pregnant again (exhausted!), lots of traveling and most recently I had to have surgery done. I'm finally well into my second trimester and almost fully recovered from surgery so I wanted to use the last week of my medical leave to start PT since I will be home all day with my son.

He is pretty verbal, he knows words for pee pee, poo poo, loves to flush the toilet, we do both sposies and prefolds and I always dump the poop in the toilet in front of him and have him flush. We live in Asia and have an open bathroom in that our shower, toilet, sink etc are in one room without any separation so for example when we shower the whole floor/bathroom gets wet. At least once a day he pees in the bathroom, on the floor usually before or after a shower and if he doesn't, we encourage him to pee and he usually goes, then we cheer etc. He has done this up to 3x a day on occasion. I don't know if this is good or bad... to have him pee on the bathroom floor but we did it because its no biggie to wash up as we're bathing anyway. Sometimes he pees on the bathroom floor the moment his diaper comes off but he never does it if we take off his diaper outside the bathroom.

Poop is nearly always in the diaper. Last night DH gave him a shower and he began pooping on the floor and covering his face while doing it (I've never seen that before!). DH tried to get him to finish on the toilet but he refused so he put him down and he finished pooping on the bathroom floor :-/

I also have a potty for him and several potty seats that fit onto a regular size toilet. He has been pretty ambivalent toward them, has never actually used the potty yet and doesn't really like to sit on the big toilet I assume cos he's pretty small and even with the seat it sometimes looks like he's being swallowed.

Anyway I hope to start PT on Mon by doing bare bum followed soon after by underwear. I have read the very helpful instructions but was just wondering if anyone has extra advice for me? Did we do the wrong thing by letting him pee on the bathroom floor? How many pairs of underwear do I need? Also what about nights - what do I use at night after we say bye bye to all diapers? Do we use pull ups or training pants or is it ok to bring out a diaper again just for night?

And finally I don't have a lot of money to spend on training pants... is it ok to use underwear and put a cloth diaper doubler (cotton, bamboo or hemp) in the undies just to catch leaks? I was wondering if I could do this just for outings, church or night time if we can't use diapers then?

Thanks so much for any advice and sorry for the long post and multitude of questions!

Comments (224)

Since he has learned to pee standing up, maybe you could get him a little step stool so he can pee standing up into the toilet. I think I have about 11 pairs of undies, we have never gone through all of them in one day. At first, you can still put him in diapers at night. I used diapers at night during the first couple weeks and then tried to night train. DS always wakes up soaked, so I was waking him 2-3 times a night. Sometimes it worked out, but he is a really heavy sleeper and a lot of times he would still wet himself sometime during the night, so we went back to diapers for a while at night. I bought some training pants, but honestly, I have only used them like two times. I don't really see a need for them.

We're also starting Monday! I would use this week to get him used to the potty, either a small one his size or the ring on the toilet. On the sticky, she gives her experience of taking just a day and rewards to get her son comfortable on the potty first fully clothes and finally bare bottom. My daughter was doing great last week with sitting on it, and yesterday she refused and today she sat for a second and then said no and jumped up.... Anyway, pt would go better if your LO isn't afraid. Let him see you and your dh use it, read books about it, talk about being clean and dry, etc.

Thanks for the encouragement! I am really nervous about starting but I don't want to miss the window of opportunity! Plus I'm due in late Sept so would love to have him out of diapers by then. We do have a little step stool he likes to sit on. His penis is just over the top of the toilet bowl if he stands on it so I wonder if that would work... but I'd still need to teach him to sit to poop.

A couple more questions as we gear up to start training...
-- Do I need to get some training pants for night training? I'm not planning to start night training so soon but would like to be prepared. Or would training pants be a setback?
-- For the last couple months DS gets 4-5oz of milk before his bedtime bath, so about 1-1.5hr before he falls asleep at night. Should I start giving him the milk earlier? I don't want him to get into the habit of having it and then being upset when I stop giving it to him. How many hours before bed should I move the milk up? And should I just stick with water as his last drink even if he asks for milk?

As for your first question, at this age don't really worry about night training yet. However, you don't want to do any of your changes lying down, so having training pants for overnight could be very handy. I was just reading a diary and switching from an overnight diaper to pull-ups was a huge help for her. So, that's just a thought!
I hope someone with experience can answer your second question. My first thought is that milk is more likely to cause bed wetting and even though you probably won't be night training for a couple months or so, it would be helpful to start the transition to water or even taking it away two hours before bed.

I don't think you need training pants. I bought 3 pairs and have used them maybe twice at the beginning of training, but they really didn't hold much. I just used them for going out. I still use diapers at night, but I put them on him and take them off standing up. It would be easier to get some nighttime pull-ups, but I still have a package of diapers to use up, so that is what I am using right now. DS is 22 months and we started training at 20 months. I tried night training after about a month, but he is a heavy wetter and heavy sleeper, so it was causing us more stress than it was worth so we went back to diapers. I call them "sleeping pants" not diapers though. I am not planning on trying to tackle night training again until after he turns two.

They say not to give your child anything to drink 2 hours before bed. Milk doesn't make them pee more, it makes them sleep sounder and therefore not as likely to wake up if they have to pee.

Thanks for the tips, I'll bear that in mind! Maybe we'll go to pull-ups for night. I let him try on some new underwear today to see if they fit and he was so curious about them. He didn't pee in them but he only had them on for 20mins. I'll update here and keep track of how things go next week!

Oh forgot to add that DH has tried a few times to show him how to pee in the toilet standing up. He likes standing on the step stool and says 'papa peepee!' over and over again but hasn't actually gone in the toilet yet. I still need to teach him how to pee and poop sitting down because public toilets don't have step stools... Should we stop with the standing up to pee for now, as it might be too confusing to him...??

So DS woke up this morning with a wet diaper and then pooped. Gave him breakfast and a glass of milk, then we read books. Halfway through he looked up and said 'poo' so I took him to the toilet. Put the Bumbo potty ring on. At first he didn't want to sit on it but I blew bubbles for awhile and he liked that a lot. He sat maybe 10-15min and i tried to get him to poop but nothing and then wanted to get down. I took out the foldable ring but he didn't want to sit on it so I didn't push it. He said 'pee pee' a few times and kept getting on and off the step stool, then 5min later he peed on the bathroom floor... oh well!